Should I go back to traditional reg set-up? (vs. primary donate)

[Angelo Farina]

When I was working as dive master / instructor I usually did use at least three second stages and two first stages (on a 15-liters single).
At least one of them (possibly two, when using 4) was mounted "from the left", so wrong for me, but very practical to be given to a client/student when in need of air.
Now I am just a normal rec diver, so I use a setup with three second stages and two firsts stages only in very special conditions (caves, etc.).
In normal diving i use a standard single first stage with two IDENTICAL second stages, both coming from right, and both with a 100cm hose. So both can be easily donated, albeit not as easily as if one was mounted to the left side.
During the dive I usually alternate the two regs, so I know that both are always working well.
In case of an OOA emergency I will give the one which is more practical: at that point there is no real difference, as the regs are identical (109 converted to 156), both work for sure, and in such a case COVID-19 is the last of my concerns...

 

[TMHeimer]

BUMP

Hard to believe that I made this thread only 2 weeks ago.

Again, this is an academic question as I wont be diving any time soon. But Im wondering if 2 weeks time has changed anyone's thoughts.

And I understand that were talking about the difference of very small risks one way or another, and it likely wont ever matter (I've never had to donate in 15+ yrs of diving).

But I believe I will be switching out my primary donate set-up to traditional. I just dont like the idea of effectively having to French-kiss some rando that I happen to be diving with when I stupidly run out air, so out of consideration for my buddy, I think its best to switch to traditional.

Im a rec diver only.

Two weeks really didn't change my thoughts on this. As many have said, you'll take air from anywhere if you need it and worry about Covid later. There have been past discussions elsewhere about buddy breathing germs before the virus. But, maybe the two weeks would matter to me as now I wouldn't give any thought to diving with a buddy--that's asking for trouble well before you submerge.
Fortunately, I almost always solo dive, so my diving has yet to be affected.
But no, I wouldn't switch back to the traditional setup-- more things to worry about than that, plus how often have you ever had to share air?

My wife loved the one about the donkey farts.

 

[lexvil]

I think a lung full of c19 beats a lung full of water.

 

[BlueTrin]

I really don’t get the question.

You are probably much more likely to get Covid anywhere else than to get mugged by a random OOA diver.

Then if this OOA diver had Covid, then you still have 99% chance to survive Covid (albeit you probably only have 90% chances to not need medical treatment)

It’s like being scared of the type of hammer to break the glass in a bus in case you have an accident, or asking if you should carry gloves in case you have to deal with someone having an accident in the street.

You need two tail events to happen together.

If you dive, you are probably not self isolating, probably not washing your hands 20 seconds, not carrying a face mask, not using gloves outside, I think you are really looking at this in the wrong order of probabilities.

Unless I didn’t understand the question correctly ...

Covid does not seem to have a very high death rate in young and healthy people, it is dangerous because:

• It seems to spread easily
• The rate of people who need medical treatment (respirators) is very high

The second point is very important: this is why the ICUs are overloaded and why more people die when all ICU beds are taken.

If your concerns are not Covid specific, they would make actually more sense to me.

 

[formernuke]

My opinion hasn't changed.

But dive the configurations your most comfortable with. As long you train and pratice with it in case needed your good in my book.

 

[samb521]

No change. Do what you're comfortable with...

 

[TMHeimer]

Not that it's important, but if you dive solo you can probably better self isolate yourself than when you stand in line at the grocery store at the required 6 feet from the next person. A lot of divers dive solo. Of course if you go to a shore site with a handful of other divers or people present, that is not being responsible.

 

[Kyle0692]

Whichever method you decide to use is fine. Regardless of the method, you need to make sure your alternate/octo works before every dive (pre-dive check) and that it is secure in a KNOWN place during the dive that you have practiced using/have the muscle memory deploying.

An OOA diver is not going to wait for you to find or brandish your octo - they are going to rip your primary out of your mouth 99% of the time.

Now that I am a technical diver, I much prefer the long hose primary/bungee necklace secondary set up. Donating the long hose during the OOA is easy and you never have to fumble to find your back up reg as it is always beneath your chin (inspect the necklace before each dive). More than likely I will sell my Hydros/Air 2 rec set up for a single tank wing for my harness to use this same set up for all of my diving. The long hose also has the advantage of some separation between you and most likely, the panicked diver.

Like others have stated though, getting safe breathing air for the depth you are at when you go OOA from a working regulator is much more important than worrying if the air is coming from a corona free reg at the time. Check your gauges often and do plan your dive. Don’t run out of air underwater. If you are worried about your buddy going OOA and getting corona from you, looks like you will be donating your disinfected octo (see initial points above).

 

[ScubaWithTurk]

the most compelling reason to use primary donate is because you build muscle memory for technical configurations. \

I disagree with your assessment of the primary reason for primary donate. Yes this was the case at one time but I fully believe we are seeing people move to primary donate now for safety reasons. The longhose, once donated, gives you and your buddy more room to work with. Also...and a big plus that I talk to my students about, is how the octo is typically treated. I can't count the number of times I have seen it flailing about on a diver. Dragging in the sand, free-flowing, you name it! My buddy relies on me to get him out of the poo if something fails. Now we hand him the reg that I likely didn't test at the surface which has also been banged around the entire dive and could be jammed with sand? Don't we want to be sure our buddy can count on us? I will continue this in my response to the below post.

To your question: I don't want to give up my primary. I'll GLADLY give you my octopus (yellow so you can see it easily). The other diver is already at risk of drowning. Why give up my definitive (in my mouth) air supply to risk not getting my octopus and now I'm at risk of drowning too?? Kind of like oxygen masks in an aircraft: put YOURS on before putting someone else's on them.

Your logic here is flawed. If you dive a longhose and do primary donate, there is no "octo" to search for. It is safely bungeed around your neck. You donate the source the OOG diver knows is working. This increases their comfort level. You switch to the necklace. No muss, no fuss and everyone has a working source of gas. Also in a plane, if the masks drop, everyone is freaking out. In an OOG situation, as the donor we are calm which helps to calm the OOG diver. You are comparing apples to oranges.

The primary reason I see and have so many students that use the longhose is to be safer in the water for you and your buddy. If my primary reg fails, I do not have to go looking for the dreaded octo. My backup is around my neck. Oh and what if someone kicks my reg out of my mouth? No need to blow bubbles, do the sweep and hope and pray I find my octo. I simply put in my backup around my neck so I can get gas and then I reach or sweep for the primary. This allows me to feel more comfortable when it comes to fixing my own emergencies. My buddy also knows what I am going to give him works. Now he is more comfortable.

As diving continues to evolve, I believe with all my heart and mind that we will see a day when octos no longer exist. It is all primary donate. This is being seen already in some agencies and in some dive centers. It is just a better way to do things.

 

[wstorms]

Given the fact that covid causes breathing issues, I think you can safely assume nobody with significant symptoms would go diving. So as a starting point, let's assume you or your buddy does have the virus, but are still unaware of it. Although there are (many) cases where people are able to transmit it without having any symptoms themselves, on average the individual virus load will still be low in cases like that. Since you don't have that much virus to spread around, the chance of infection is already reduced somewhat.
The virus is transmitted via droplets, moving a reg trough the water will wash off some of these droplets decreasing the chance of infection further.
Let's try to put some figures on that (please note I am not a doctor and cannot backup the figures below with actual facts. It is merely an attempt to guesstimate the particular risk mentioned by the OP and put that in perspective compared with other risks)

The chance that you are diving with somebody who has the virus is low to start with. Say 1 in 3 people is infected (no base for this other than all news outlets say the actual infection rate is a lot higher than the reported rate). So let's say the chance is 0.3

Multiply that with the likelihood that one of you runs OoA: say divers run OoA 1 in every 10.000 dives (wild guess here, but we are talking recreational diving)
0.3 X 0.00001

Multiply that with the likelihood that a contaminated reg is donated: say surfacing is not an option and a mouthpiece (rubber covered in saliva) contains the virus (remember the load will be small). Let's say it's about 50/50.

0.3 X 0.00001 X 0.5

multiply that with the chance that that particular action will get the other person infected: again, let's assume 50/50

0.3 X 0.00001 X 0.5 X 0.5 = 0.00000075‬

Now think about the OoA scenario a bit further; once you surface, you probably will be close together in order to help the OoA diver establish positive buoyancy at the surface. Good chance you will be within an arms length and breathing in each others face. This by far is riskier than the donation in the first place.

So with regards to the original question; it makes no sense to me to alter your setup, since doing that (and retraining some muscle memory) will introduce another risk on it's own.
Quite frankly, the bigger risk is skipping your buddy check as a team.